If you’re going to drive and you’ve been drinking, you may be considering ways to sober up before you get behind the wheel. There are a lot of different tricks that people like to use to accomplish this.
For instance, some people believe that they can drink a strong cup of coffee and then they’ll be more sober than they were before. If they’re at a bar, they may swing by a coffee shop before heading home. Others believe that they need to take a cold shower before they drive. They’ve been drinking at home, so they hop in the shower before they get in the car.
But do these things actually work?
They do not. They’re common myths, but they have no impact on your blood alcohol concentration or how intoxicated you are. That is determined by the amount of alcohol that is in your system, and a cup of coffee doesn’t change that.
This myth likely persists simply because coffee does help you stay more alert. People who feel alert may mistake that for feeling sober, even though the two are very different things.
So what can you do?
Since the goal is to eliminate the alcohol from your system, there is one thing you can do. Wait. Your body does this naturally, decreasing alcohol by about 0.015% per hour. So the best way to become more sober is simply to wait until the alcohol has been metabolized and your blood alcohol concentration has dropped.
To some degree, this may be why people think that things like taking a shower or drinking coffee can help them. These things do take time. If you spend an hour walking to the coffee shop and getting your drink, you are slightly more sober than you were before. But it’s not because of the coffee. It’s just because of the time that you spent before you got in the car.
Did you get a DWI?
If you’ve been following myths like this or made any mistakes based on inaccurate knowledge, you may find yourself facing DWI charges. If you are, it’s quite important for you to consider all of the legal options you have. A DWI can have some strict ramifications it may impact the rest of your life, so you need to know what steps to take.